Buddhists For Racial Justice

[Kyonin]

Compassion in action.

Beautiful!

Gassho,

Kyonin
#SatToday

[RichardH]

It is a very powerful image. Humbling.

Gassho
Daizan


sat today

[Troy]

Gassho, J

SatToday

Thank you for posting this


..sat2day•合掌

[Ed]

The heart sees no color.

sat2DAY

[GregJanL]

Hi All,

Out of the recent U.S. Buddhist Leaders conference at the White House, has come a website about racism, with many links and resources, calls to engage, and an open letter that can be endorsed by anyone who wishes to sign.

Racial equality and justice are very important to me, and to you too I’m sure, so I’m glad to see this effort, and hopefully some good action will come about, as well as hearts and minds expanding. The site looks great.

One thing does make me pause, though. I kind of wish they weren’t starting off by splitting the room into “white people” and “people of color.” The Calls to Engage are split in this way. As someone who looks very white, but is of mixed race, I’m always frustrated when forced to choose one side, when filling out forms and etc. Obviously the intent of the website is good: it is to tailor these actions to the people who, presumably, will benefit the most from them. It seems to me that everyone could benefit from all of it, and would get a wider perspective in this way. The world is (stupidly) divided along racial lines... I’m not sure the cure for that should be divided along racial lines as well. I need to read more and think more about that. This is me making distinctions about them making distinctions, I guess.

Anyway, it looks like a good thing to me overall. Here’s the link:

http://buddhistsforracialjustice.org/

Gassho
Lisa
sat today

raindrop,

In a perfect world, there are no national boundaries, not only racial. I'm a individual that simply does not identify with any nationality due to the arbitrary divisiveness it causes. People will press the question after I explain this..'so are you..italian..?russian?english?? but really what are you?' I explain to them that they are asking a loaded question with the implication that I somehow identify with some place of birth or that they need to know it because they need to fit me in some kind of category to relate from so they can 'engage' me in a cultural context that I have no interest in fanning. I live in america, that's about all people will get from me and need to talk to me to get to know me.

I even try to keep the Buddhist thing under wraps and let my practice speak for me unless someone really connects and questions my person. As flattering as it was I got tired of people crossing their imputation of hhdl onto me and getting all starry eyed. I feel a responsibility to incite critical thinking skills in people and basking in the easy glow of Buddhist teachers just by waving the dharma flag where I may or may not have the same insights is dishonest, so there is a ethical degree as to why I push others to use critical thinking skills.

It takes a long time for a non-polarity such as black vs white to be resolved, a lot of work for society to express seamless interdependence when society has little contact with philosophies that explain why that dichotomy is a delusion. It does happen over time like how I think people gradually incubate in the Tathagata womb and realize Buddhahood one day. The dictonomy of white vs 'people of color' on that site is just a artifact that if the movement towards racial equality via seeing the lack of meaningful difference in race alone is successful, will be just a quaint note in the history books of a hopefully successful and bygone social movement.

Sign 'people of color", sign 'white', either way I imagine this current iteration of molting on this issue will go away if successful, the glaring oddity of two separate places to sign over a issue of implied equality over skin color.

Metta,
Greg

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